Mirrors (2008) Movie Review

When will Hollywood learn to stop remaking this Asian horror films and just get back to creating original scary movies? Who knows? It may be awhile as yet again another bad Asian horror remake is unveiled with Mirrors, which is based on the 2003 Korean horror film Into the Mirror. This year we have already been given other Asian horror remakes such as One Missed Call and The Eye, in which Mirrors is not as bad as these two, but that is not really saying a lot.

The film follows an ex-alcoholic NYPD cop named Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland), who has recently been suspended by the force and kick out of his home by his estranged wife Amy (Paula Patton). He is now crashing at his younger sister’s (Amy Smart) apartment and trying to piece his life back together so he can reconnect with his wife and two children (Cameron Boyce and Erica Gluck). He lands a job as a night security watchmen at a burned and gutted department store called the Mayflower. The building is full of mirrors of all sizes and each night strange things begin happening to Ben from the mirrors. Disturbing images and other creepy things from the reflections prove to Ben that his has to figure out the supernatural mystery to the mirrors. His time soon begins to run out as the forces within the mirrors make their way to threatening the lives of his family.

From gore loving director Alexandre Aja (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes), Mirrors has a unique concept, but it’s a fuddled mess of a film with no consistency nor thrills. The characters are one-dimensional and the dialogue is a joke, which could be acceptable for a film of this nature, but the execution of the film is more laughable than anything. Aja of course throws out numerous jump out scares, then gets bored and has to deliver a over the top gross-out-moment, which has a character ripping her own jaw off. The film then devises into detective mode, before it becomes a non-ending confrontation for the main character against the mirrors. The twist at the end of the film also offers nothing fresh. This horror/thriller might have worked in better hands, but it just jumbled rendition of miscues and near straight to DVD nature.

Kiefer Sutherland is the man as Jack Bauer on television’s 24, but he pretty much stays in the same mode with his movie roles now, remember The Sentinel. As Ben, Sutherland gets to yell louder and curse more, but he keeps the same monotone of his Bauer character throughout Mirrors. Perhaps Sutherland should stretch his acting muscles by taking a strict supporting turn, such as his did terrifically in A Time to Kill. Paula Patton is wasted in her role as Ben’s wife Amy, in which her job is to yell at Sutherland and run around in a wet white tank top through the film’s final thirty minutes. Another member of the cast is Amy Smart as Ben’s younger sister and Jason Flemyng as a police detective.

Mirrors is not the worst Asian horror remake made by Hollywood, but that is not saying too much. The trend all started with The Ring, in which no other remake has come close to topping it.